Oxygen
by Caelta
Summary: One rainy day on Paper Street could change lives...or maybe it's just one of those "things." J/M


In writing this, I figured I'd take a short break from my major work - Past Reflection Passed Direction. (That title is a mouthful .) It was either this or POTC, which I'll probably end up doing later anyway. This one doesn't seem nearly as popular, though, so I doubt I'll get many reviews. Oh, well. If you do review, then I'm glad I could share the love. ^.^ Oh, and if you're confused on any of this, then I'll go ahead and say that Mr. Tyler Durden has no part in this fic besides mention. Thanks to all! Cheers!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. All recognizable material belongs to David Fincher/Chuck Palahniuk

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Precipitation. Wet, cold, clinging drops of lonely rain that clung to everything willing to absorb it. It surrounded them, inducing the swollen house to groan on its very foundation as the drumming pangs overhead threatened to lash out and rip apart the sodden night.

"Hey, Marla, what do you think the world would be like…if it never rained?"

Every tiny corner of the whole house was transformed into a leak, and every leak spewed a waterfall of filthy water trickling down from only God knew where. The entire place was packed with chill and moisture, as dark and damp as the inside of a cave. The only light burned from a single candle in the center of the protesting floor, flickering for survival in the dripping wreck and reflecting back in their eyes.

Marla sniffed.

"What do you mean, if it never rained? What do you think; are you stupid? We'd all be living in a fucking desert, what else?"

Tyler, as she saw him, laughed. He was propped up against the opposite wall, a soaked towel draped over the top of his head like an Arab. The blue of his eyes glittered gray as he watched the rain drip onto a newspaper weeks old by his foot, and she couldn't help but notice that he was in one of his moods again.

It was never a normal sulking; no, it was all too real for that. Tyler's "moods", as she had labeled them, were like mini bouts of amnesia. They were usually a depressing time for her, because they were a time when he refused to acknowledge her at all past a mild friendship, and he barely responded by name. These could last for minutes, or for days on end, and she was almost convinced that he was a completely separate person during these moments.

"Yeah, I guess so…" Tyler said. "I guess what I meant was-"

"…if you didn't have to live in this leaking shit-hole?" Marla interrupted. "Yeah, I hear you." She looked up at the dripping ceiling, as if accusing it for her inability to light a cigarette. For a couple of seconds, she actually considered offering her own apartment to the moody man, but then she quickly decided against it in better reasoning. She could only imagine what it would be like _living _with Mr. Two-face, if she could hardly put up with him now.

"It's freezing!" Marla complained irritably. "Doesn't this place get any heat?"

Tyler looked up to her, and his icy eyes flashed in the light of the solitary candle. He shrugged, indicating his indifference to the matter.

"No, not when it rains," he answered. "You cold? You want a blanket or something?"

Sighing and watching her wasted breath float away as a white cloud, she rolled her eyes at his mysterious mood. Perhaps she hadn't gotten to know him enough, but somehow she would have thought that he might have considered something like that and given it to her on his own without asking. Again, it only attested to how much she wished she could have wished she'd never met Tyler Durden.

"Please," she insisted.

He got up slowly and walked out of the room without another word, and Marla took the opportunity to groan to herself and lightly bang the back of her head against the wall. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and Tyler offered her nothing but fancy words from a silver tongue. She wouldn't be surprised if it were forked, too. She wished she could just walk out, but it seemed that every time she tried there was some force that worked to pull her back.

XXX

I am Jack's burning sense of undeniable confusion.

Somehow, he'd ended up on Marla's side of the room, at her side and with her head tilted onto his shoulder. She was at such an angle that prevented him from simply getting up and leaving her there, and as far as he could tell she seemed to be asleep.

The blanket covered both him and her in its protection from the wet and chill, and Jack was also loathe to relinquish that aegis.

The confusion came when he looked over at Marla, seeing her delicate features softened by sleep and the dim light of the dank atmosphere. He couldn't see how someone that seemed so peaceful now could create so much destruction in his life, or how someone so beautiful could be so much of a threat.

She who had invaded his help sessions as the reflection of his fake actions, invaded his life with a few simple phone calls and an argument over bowl cancer, and who was now invading his space with an unintentional proximity seemed so harmless now. It was hard to believe from just looking at her perfectly angled face and softly curved lips that she could get any louder, though she certainly could.

The confusion simmering down his veins could only be compared to one of the chemical drugs that Marla may have overdosed on at some point. It was at such a level of euphoria that it was unbearable, and Jack was briefly reminded of that first day he'd met Tyler, hearing his theory on the oxygen masks on airplanes.

Never before had he been so close to this woman he'd once considered such a tyrant, or so comfortable with finally letting go of his materialism, as Tyler wanted. He was so close he could almost reach out and taste his prize, if only he knew what that was.

Shifting further to the side, Jack leaned down to trace over her clumped, neglected hair, purple-shadowed eyes, and red-lined lips with his eyes. She took no notice, and he felt his unknown drug flare up within his veins as if someone had lit an unseen match. The oxygen traveled faster to his lungs, through his blood, and to his thrumming heart at a rate that he would consider unusual for just sitting on the floor in the rain.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jack could sense Tyler laughing like he'd just committed arson as he leaned forward against all reason to meet his lips with hers and breathe her in.


End file.
